An excerpt from “The Gods of Mbo: A Study in Schizophrenia” by the Bard Rufus the Well Travelled.
Great Mbo and the Unknown is an extremely odd place by eastern standards, and no part of that vast and strange continent is odder than its deities. At first glance, this doesn't seem the case. Sure, a lot of their gods and goddesses identify with animals (and not just when they are horny, I'm looking at you, Dumuzid), but overall, on the surface, things seem pretty recognizable. There is a sizable pantheon, organized into a pecking order with different gods in charge of different things. There is a top god, who on the surface seems to be a sun god kinda guy, with an earth mom kind of wife. They have a God of the Underworld rather then a goddess, but hey gods and goddess have always been gender fluid when it suits them.
Easy right? This is just The Three reskinned again, right?
Domains, Sphere's of Influence (Or the Lack Thereof)
Well, not so fast. The more I traveled in Mbo, the more I realized that these Westerners have a very different mental model than we from Valtentis. Fundamentally different. I'd argue that an elf from The Woods of the Golden Sylph has more in common with a halfling from Valoria than a human from Valoria does with a human from Great Mbo. East and West will never meet, and all that jazz. Dig in even a little to the Unknown , and you will see that on display. In spades.
And yes, I traveled extensively in Mbo. And yes I know outsiders are forbidden there yada yada, wrath of The God-King and all that. So, all I say to that is, if the God-King doesn't like it, he can sue me.
Dig beneath the surface a little. Who is Unknown exactly, anyway? What is she in charge of? What is her Sphere? Well she is the consort of Unknown right? Queen of the Sky, Mother of the Earth? Inanna basically. Except hold on, she's also the consort of Osiris? One of the aspects of The God-King of Mbo. That's a little odd, I guess old Re isn't the jealous type? And wait, Unknown is also the goddess of the Earth and growing things. And so is Unknown.
And Hathora is also a vengeance goddess who protects from enemies. And represents beauty, music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, which sounds a lot like my good buddy Dionysus. Except Unknown has a lot of those spheres too.
The more you dig in, the more you see this overlap in responsibilities. Literally the entire pantheon is involved in death and the afterlife, for instance, though both Unknown and Osiris seem to be in charge of Underworld. Everyone overlaps with everyone, spheres comingle, there is nothing like the relatively clear lines of demarcation you see in Eastern Polytheism. And yet, the gods and the priests are not involved in constant turf wars, they seem totally ok with the confusion.
Your average Mboian also has no problem whatsoever with this and sees it as perfectly natural. He or she never seems to have any problem figuring out which god to pray to for what, it's obvious to them, though they are completely unable to explain the rulesets used to make those determinations.
And your average Mboian prays a LOT, especially compared to, say, a citizen of Valoria. In Valoria, prayer is like taxes; you pay them because you have to, and if you don't, there is a chance that something big and powerful will take notice of the lack. Mboians pray like they breathe, constantly and instinctively. And they sacrifice, oh boy, do they like their sacrifices in Mbo, and I am not just talking animals here.
And your average Mboian better pray, if he knows what's good for him. Because there are GODS in Mbo man. And not like there are in Valoria. Back home, Gods are like senior management; they don't show up unless something has gone seriously wrong. In Mbo those fuckers are underfoot constantly. They are INVOLVED. In everything. Small gods, big gods, they show up. They do stuff. Hell, even their king is a god. Kick a cat, it won't be the priest of Baast that deals with you, it may be the cat lady herself.
And speaking of priests, "underfoot" goes double for them. I have seen more priests on your average Mbo'ian boulevard than I've seen in the temple district in Valoria on the highest of holy days. I swear, a good chunk of the population must be in the priesthood. And they run everything, either directly or because many of them also have high ranking posts in the Unknown.
And what's the difference between Unknown and the Unknown anyway? Oh brother, that's a whole nother book, not going there, at least not at this time,
But yes, lots of priests in Mbo, and they aren't toothless, either, lots of god-magic on display. Not many wizards or sorcerers, though. Maybe the gods don't like competition.
Eventually, the more I dug, the more I realized. It's not just one pantheon. It's at least four, maybe more, which I group as follows
The Old Gods of Mbo
These ladies and gentlemen have been around for a long, long time. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. They've ruled for millennium, back to Lost Farbosheia and maybe even longer. They exist in a complex relationship to themselves, to nature to humanity, a balance the priesthood calls the Cosmic Trim. Their job seems to fundamentally be to maintain that balance. This all reminds me of the Balance the Circle of the Northmost Groves is always going on about, but the Trim seems a lot more than just civilization vs nature. And there is a very real belief that without the ceremonies and sacrifices the gods demand, that balance would be quickly overcome and the entire cosmos would devolve into the primordial chaos from which it came.
Of course, if I were a bunch of gods protecting a franchise, I'd probably say things like that too; it's good marketing.
The Cult of the God-King
In some ways, the God-King reminds me of Mithra from The Thousand Isles , and many say Mithra traveled in Mbo as a young man and picked up some ideas there. But in most ways that matter, The God-King of Mbo is pretty different. He evidently started as a mortal man about a thousand years ago, a king of a relatively minor and backward southern state. Hell of a general from the sound of things, though, in the first twenty years of his life, he managed to conquer his older and more civilized neighbors and crowned himself King of Five Rivers, ruling most of the human settled parts of the continent, at least the parts that mattered.
And then somehow he was killed, then resurrected (the legends are pretty vague on all of this) and when he returned from his time in The Shadowlands he returned as something more than a man. He went on to conquer the rest of the continent, including the other two rivers, and the non-human kingdoms, declared himself a God, and has ruled the place ever since. Ruled TIGHTLY. Which is no mean feat considering the size of the place.
Unlike Mithra, though, he didn't set himself up as his own religion; not exactly at least, he seems to have been more of an "embrace and extend" kind of guy. He made himself part of the existing theological system somehow.
I was in Mbo for five years and I freely admit I have no idea how The God-King reconciles theologically with the rest of it. Is Re the Lord of the Sun or is The God-King? The answer seems to be "yes'. Who the hell is Isis and how does that relate to Hathor? Are they the same deity or separate ones? The answer seems to be "yes". Anubis vs Osiris? Same thing.
Parts of this remind me some of the Unknown of the The Thousand Isles. But backward. The Loa seem to manifest as a single entity with multiple aspects or personalities. The pantheons of Mbo seem to be multiple distinct entities that are also merged into similar aspects somehow.
I tell you, as a simple Easterner, it's enough to make you appreciate Dumuzid. You know where you stand with a Sky God. Anyone else claims to be a Sky God around old Dumuzid, and that entity and Dumuzid are gonna have some words and sort that shit right out, probably with a lot of lightening. There can be only one. And it'll be the one with the biggest lightning bolt. Clean, simple.
Do the Old Gods and the Cult of the God-King compete? Yes. Are they the same religion? Yes?
Now you know why this text is called " A Study in Schizophrenia."
And this set is not even all of the gods.
The River Gods
Yes, there is an entirely separate pantheon of River Deities, at least one for each of the seven great rivers, but they have multiple aspects too. Are they the same as the Old Gods that have dominion over the rivers (which is like half of them). Yes. Do they represent primal Elemental forces, and as such are they completely different from the core pantheon? Yes. Are they possibly splinters or children of The Lady? Yes. Do you want to use magic to fuck with the rivers of Mbo without their permission? No. No, you do not.
Gods of the Deserts and Mountains
Often called Djinn, Jinn, Effreti, or Jannah, these fellows (who thankfully I have never met) sound almost more like the Fey than anything else, though they are also all wrapped up in the Mbo'ian religion somehow (because why not, it obviously needs some more gods thrown in). They mostly seem to inhabit the desolate parts of the vast continent, deserts, mountains, and salt wastelands. The desert tribes and the giants supposedly worship them. They also seem to have a demonic tint to them as well; there are many stories of Mboians trying to make deals with them, deals which go south in relatively predictable ways.
The ShadowGreen
This is just a rumor of a rumor. I only heard about it once, from an old merchant who had just returned from an expedition in the deep south of the continent. He mentioned the frontiers of the Empire lay there, and he'd been all the way to WHERE THE EMPIRE ENDED (which for a Mbo'ian is pretty mind-blowing, like journeying to the gates of Hell or something). When I asked him what lay beyond the borders, what had finally stopped the conquests of the mighty armies of the God-King, he shuddered and started muttering about "The Savage Lands" and the "Dark Coast" and a "Green Shadow that lay over those lands" and prevented further advancement. Even with five years of travel, I never got within a thousand leagues of that frontier. The Unknown is unbelievably immense. I hope to venture there someday. This God-King is no slouch, at least in the conquest department; whatever finally stopped his armies must be worth seeing.
Conclusion
So, that's my very imperfect picture of the Mboian religion. I doubt I will ever truly understand what is going on over there. I doubt I can; our barbarian minds just aren't wired that way. It's all very academically interesting, fascinating even. Shit like this is one of the reasons I love to travel. But like everything to do with gods, from a practical perspective, you don't really need to understand any of it. The best course of action is clear.
Avoid fucking with them, even the little ones. Keep your head down. If you run into one, smile, nod, pay your tithe, and back away slowly. Don't end up on the sacrificial slab. And above all, avoid drawing their attention or getting embroiled in their plots. You are but a pawn in their games (and 'pawn' is probably giving you too much credit), and you don't even vaguely understand the rules. The smartest move is not to play.